THE crew of a Washington bomber which plunged out of the skies and crashed in North Wales, killing the 10 men on board, are to be commemorated 55 years on.

The cause of the crash near the village of Llanarmon-yn-Ial was never established, and it turned out to be one of the largest death tolls the RAF had seen during peacetime.

Now a service is to be held at the local church and a slate memorial erected to those who died.

Organisers are appealing for help to trace relatives of the 10 who may want to attend the service.

On September 6 Northop Silver Band, Llwynegrin Singers and RAFA representatives will join families of those who perished at a service at Llanarmon-yn-Ial Church.

A slate memorial will be unveiled listing the names of those who died, and there will be a parade with standard bearers and a contingent from RAF Marham, where the Washington first flew from.

Family are coming from throughout the UK, and also from California, but organisers say they are anxious to contact any others.

Among those attending are Sheelah Adamson and Richard Sloane from London, daughter and son of Squadron Leader Bill Sloane, pilot and captain of the aircraft.

Alex Hughson and his wife Lyn from California, and their daughter, Tamar Hughson from Edinburgh, will also be there.

Alex is the brother of Sergeant Bobby Hughson, one of the gunners on the aircraft.

It was on the night of January 8, 1953, that the plane circled over Ruthin, and witnesses said it was clearly in trouble.

During its last minutes it lost its tail section and fell into woods below, but not one of the crew sent an emergency radio message and no-one baled out.

Organiser Ross Duffield, a retired detective chief superintendent with North Wales Police, says the crash is a real mystery.

He and former colleague Police Sergeant Darryl Jones have traced some relatives of those who perished, but are also anxious to find others who may wish to attend the service.

Ross was at one stage part of the regional crime squad at Hawarden and he had spotted six RAF graves with the same date of death in the local cemetery.

After he retired, he started to investigate what had happened and it was a journey which, he says, took on a life of its own.

He spent a lot of time researching and delving through the official Board of Inquiry report into the accident at the National Archives in London.

The flight should have been a routine trip for the members of 90 Squadron from RAF Marham, Norfolk.

The regular captain was not available and his place was taken by Squadron leader Williams Rutherford Sloane, 32.

The plane was a B29 Washington Bomber, WF502, of 90 Squadron Bomber Command and that day the crew of 10 – average age 24 – went on a bombing exercise.

The plane flew out over the North Sea and then back across the north of England.

At 8.57pm they were 19,000 feet above Wirral, probably near Neston, but what happened next will never be known.

The last radar contact was over Wirral at about 13,000 ft.

“It went into a steep dive and no-one knew why,” Ross said.

The plane’s tail section broke away and it landed upside down in woods at Wern Goed, between Gelli Gynnan Farm and Chweleiriog Lwyd, Llanarmon-yn-Ial.

A Board Of Inquiry failed to uncover the reason for the crash.

“Clearly something went dramatically wrong with the engine.

“The rear tail section fell off and it plunged out of the sky,” Ross said.

One witness reported the engine appeared to rev up then died.

Local people immediately went to the scene and three even went inside the aircraft, which was on fire.

Two crew were carried out but no-one survived. Then the plane exploded.

The inquest heard that all had died of multiple fractures before the fire took hold.

Garmon Jones, who lives at Gelli Gynan Farm, is the grandson of the first man at the scene at the time, and has given Ross Duffield access to the crash site and helped him piece together what happened.